PeopleSoft Delegation framework and Leave of Absence (LOA)

Oracle introduced the Delegation Framework for PeopleSoft Absence Management in version 9.0*, bridging a glaring gap in absence related self service functionalities. While there are some known limitations for this framework (which we will cover in detail in another post), the functionality is robust enough to address most business requirements. In this post, we intent to discuss the impact on delegation, when the delegator goes on a Leave of Absence (LOA). 

A Leave of Absence (LOA) generally represents a long term absence of an employee from an organisation due to reasons like illness, maternity, sabbatical etc. A LOA is very different from a normal leave like vacation, bereavement or sickness due to the length of absence and due to the fact that most often, an employee on LOA undergoes a reduction in payment. 

From a business process point of view, if a manager goes on a LOA, what should be done to the employees reporting to the manager and what should be done to the approval authority of the manager?

The best practise in this case, is to have a change in the reporting structure and completely move all employees reporting to the manager going on LOA to another manager. An alternate practise we have seen is to use delegation when a manager goes on LOA. This means that prior to going on LOA, a manager delegates all of her Manager Self Service tasks to another manager, under the assumption that the proxy manager can take care of all approvals on 'behalf' of her. This is not a suggested practise as it is best to re-assign the employees to an active manager whenever a manager goes on LOA. What happens in the PeopleSoft delegation framework if a manager delegates her transactions prior to going on LOA? In this case, the delegation framework fails to recognize the delegation and the proxy will not be able to act on behalf of the delegator. It goes without saying that this will lead to serious business process issues with the transactions raised by employees reporting to the manager on LOA remaining unapproved.

This calls for a strict process of changing the reporting structure whenever a manager goes on LOA. Delegation should not be used to take care of the approvals in the absence of a manager who is on LOA.

*Time and Labor adopted the delegation framework in v9.1